Happy days, people! Good to be back on line after having been down since last July. We had to reorganize the website. Thanks to Peace G members, Michel and Krister, we are now back up and running. We all knew nothing about websites, and this is an on-going learning process, especially for Krister and Michel, because all I do is write the newsletter. My mentor, Judith Tannenbaum, edits and types what I write, but Michel and Krister learned the techniques of creating and maintaining a fine website. Our home page is based in my beloved Sweden. I thank you all for your hard work, my brothers and sister. Everyone is doing this work on a volunteer basis. So right now, there are only Michel, Judith, Krister, and me. We need help from people who know about websites and some who might want to help type up some of my writing. If you can help, please contact us at our website. Or you can write me snail mail. I really like getting old fashioned mail.
Happy New Year to you all. May the sweet light of the sun and moon, Mother Earth, and love, peace and forgiveness satiate your hearts and souls. May your growth be tremendous. May our combined healing light fill the land in Asia and Africa with joy, peace, rebuilding, and rebirthing. We cannot allow our collective help to be just a flash in the dark. Already it appears the American media has forgotten the earthquake as well as the genocide taking place in Africa. The politicians have run out of words of support. We – the people of peace, love and forgiveness – must keep the support going into Asia and Africa. Tidal waves of love and light.
PRISON DAY
I am hanging cool here at New Folsom. This morning, I sat outside the art room and tossed some bread to the birds. A warm day today, and the birds are getting a bit more frisky and moody. I left Pleasant Valley prison last July. Somehow most of my mail got lost in the low tunnels of this prison mail system. I went months without any mail, and at this moment I am a lone lion howling in the wilderness, or the last timber wolf in an ancient forest, or a lone butterfly tracking across the globe. Only one side of my head phones is working today, and I long to hear some sad, sweet, bluesy music to hug this moment in my melancholic heart and soul. It is okay to be sad or melancholic as long as you don't let it build a nest inside. Feelings come and go, in a sense. I sit here waiting for the mail to pick up, but only the rain fills the low places in the grasses. My head is up and my heart, my being is fat with love.
BIRD STUFF
There are only black birds and cow birds and red-winged black birds on the grounds where I feed. A fat pigeon or two pop by and grub. There are no sparrows, which is so strange. Probably because there are no trees here, but the area surrounding the prison is full of trees and bushes. Patches of grass cannot protect the little fellows from the hawks. I have yet to see a hawk here. Even though I heard a that red-tailed hawk snatched a pigeon from the upper basketball court where the pigeons hang out in masses, and are fed. There are plenty of seagulls now, and crows are honking. I have been here eight months. I must have seen a male sparrow twice, but not a female. Just the other day, one surprised me. It darted in, grabbed a piece of bread, and quickly flew back over the wall. This prison sits on a hilltop, and is hidden from view of any land traffic. I was driven up here on the bus. We came up slight hills and curves, and then – boom – the old rusty medieval structure of Old Folsom appeared, and right beside it – New Folsom. I'll not know when spring begins this year because I usually go by the singing and dancing of the birds' nest-building. There is no place for the birds to nest here, no place to pick up twigs or raise their young. I'll know when it's late spring when a cow bird or black bird brings an older baby bird to the feeding grounds.
STAY REAL SECTION
I want to say hello to my friend, Ingunn, and her two classes, especially to Ralph Mikael and Arina and a big hi to Cornelia, all in Norway. I am sending a What's Up to Ernest V. Shoemaker in Yakima, Washington. Sending a hug to my folks Que, Eliu and Tory and all of Voices Unbroken in the Bronx, New York. A Greetings to Katie and Katy in North Carolina at Appalachian State University.
IT COULD HAVE BEEN ADAM
dedicated to Katy
On a heavy day
She works ten to fourteen hours
She doesn't like her job
She does it for money
She'd rather design clothes
She'd rather be president
She'd rather write books
She'd rather be an engineer
and build towers to the sky.
It would happy her face, heart and soul
to live and follow her bliss
and myth in life.
Yet she shutters guilt-ridden
in the cascading sands of a man's world
When it could have been Adam
who bit the apple and passed it to Eve.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Food inside is getting worse each year. Sometimes each month. The minute one thinks it could not get more disgusting, it does. Each year now, they cut the food budget. So I go to the prison store, and get a lot of sardines and crackers. But I burn out on that sometimes. The best food now-a-days is in the vending machine inside the visiting room. So I am looking for people, particularly people in the Sacramento area or elsewhere in Northern California, who might want to come visit, share fellowship, and give me a break from the inside prison food. I am dealing with it, and will continue to, but a break now and then would be cool. Please, those of you who see and feel the realness of our website, do tell three or four other folks about it. Remember to keep flexing your mind, body and soul! Dreams full of realness. Peace G. sends love.
Keep growing and glowing. Spoon
